Uru

The Uru, who spoke Uchumataqu, were fishermen and reed gatherers of the high Andean lakes: Lake Titicaca, Lake Poopó and the Desaguadero River. They called themselves Lupihaques, sons of the Sun, and held that they owned the lake and its water. On Titicaca they lived on floating islands made of totora reed, which could be moved if a threat arose.

The Uru traded and intermarried with the Aymara on the mainland and gradually gave up their own language for Aymara. After the Inca conquest they paid tribute and were often enslaved. A conflict between the Uru and the Aymara arose from 1722.